✓ | falling ➝ j. cade

i. the first impressions

author's note: i messed up the timing i know i know. technically steve and two-bit would have graduated high school by this point (two years after the novel *ended*), but they're both important parts of the end of the chapter, and i didn't realize that until it was already written, so please ignore that! enjoy (:

❝YOUR EYES ARE SAYING 'TALK TO ME.', BUT YOUR ATTITUDE IS SAYING 'DON'T WASTE MY TIME'.❞
- BILLY JOEL, SLEEPING WITH THE TELEVISION ON

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Theodosia Mickelson wished she could go back in time. It's all she'd wanted since she was thirteen. She wished she didn't need her guard to be up all of the time. She wished she didn't have to throw herself into biographies, and she wished she wasn't so fascinated with peoples last words, primarily due to the fact she constantly wondered what hers would be.

Theodosia wished she didn't hate living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. It really wasn't that bad, but a place is only as good as the people you know in it. And the people Theodosia knew here made her wish she had never met them or moved here. If she had never moved to Tulsa so much would be different. Her brother wouldn't have killed someone. Her best friend wouldn't have killed herself. She wouldn't have been used and manipulated.

But she also wouldn't have fallen in love with the quiet, big eyed boy who sat behind her in their English class.

But, we'll get to that later.

Our story began in late September of 1967. The leaves were nearly finished with their process of turning from green to red, orange, yellow, and every hue in between. The air was also in its final stages of turning from the sticky, hot air of late summer to the cool, crispy of autumn. It was Theodosia's favorite time of year. She had grown up hearing that autumn was the season of decay, but Theodosia had always found it strikingly beautiful. She had a knack for finding unconventional, broken things beautiful. Theodosia found dead flowers and intense storms and broken mirrors beautiful. They soothed her. And she loved the way broken mirrors made everything look distorted and messy. She, too, was messy. Theodosia sometimes felt like she was too messy. But she learned to embrace her inner chaos, her personal hurricane. She knew better than to try to dictate her mind and control her intense emotions.

Absentmindedly, Theodosia wandered down her normal route home. She had been walking this way for almost seven years. Her mother moved her and her brother here when Theodosia was eleven and when Alexander was fifteen. He turned twenty-one a few weeks ago. Theodosia wondered how he was. She hadn't seen him in nearly three years. She wished she could lose track of how long it had been. But she knew she never would. Somethings you never forget. Theodosia knew she would never forget how scared Alexander had been. There was so much blood on him. He wouldn't stop shaking. Or whimpering. He tried to explain himself, but there was no excuse for what he did. To take someone's life? That's something you can't shake. Alexander would forever have to live with that boy's blood on his conscious. Theodosia shuddered at the memory.

Theodosia found herself at the steps of her front porch. She sat her books down the steps, grabbed her book of Edgar Allen Poe's poetry, and sat down on the wooden porch swing. Her old Beagle, Marty, jumped up into her lap. Theodosia didn't look twice at her stack of homework. She had no intention of doing it. She wanted to enjoy the quiet for awhile. Theodosia didn't want to force herself to think about anything.

___

Further into the East side lay the exact opposite. Further into the East side lay a rundown house that had a radio and tv going full blast, and teenagers yelling at each other and wrestling. There wasn't a quiet place to be found in that house.